14th September

Afternoon

18:00, Technikerstrasse 4, 8010 Graz, Library 4. Floor
Book presentation and discussion

Foundations of Urban Design
Presentation by Prof. Emer. Marcel Smets – University of Leuven

The book is structured into twenty-nine essays, each dedicated to a pair of urbanistic con­cepts. Discussing historical and contemporary, interpretive and designerly approaches to urbanity, the notions composing the 29 pairs relate dialectically, as theses-and-antitheses. However, the presented antagonisms are not in themselves in opposition, but rather com­plementary. Marcel Smets’ lexicon of fundamentals offers an operative conceptual framework for ur­ban design, a series of spatial elements, systems and approaches that become a starter tool-kit for the contemporary urbanist.

discussion with
Klaus Klaas Loenhart, Institute for Architecture and Landscape LANDLAB ia&l, TU Graz and Andrea Jany, Regional Centre of Expertise Graz-Styria, University of Graz
 

16th September

Afternoon

13:50
How to work with existing urban qualities to secure territorial continuities?

Learning from?
Historical practices guided walk with Sophia Walk

Our walk takes us to an urban typology that, in a broader sense, represents a territorial turn that takes us back in the past. The Gruenderzeit perimeter block in Graz is outstanding in terms of its greenness and density, in particular its width. We will reflect on this historic urban structure of late 19th/early 20th century and take a look on possible causes for their enduring popularity.Anticipating the future, as it is the profession of architects and urban planners, needs to go along with looking at existing buildings and the question how can we learn from these buildings? Which social qualities and ecological values can be detected within them, taken from them and visioned for the future? How can we work with them in the future? In our tour, we will grasp aspects of the history and memories around these buildings along with their tools and policies from the past to draw guiding elements for today and the future.

Caring for? Territorial Practices
Territorial practices talk | EUROPAN by Socrates Stratis

Care is about recognizing the vulnerability of our living milieu. It is about figuring new design ways to pay attention to the marginalized, hurt, or ignored and help to repair them. Europan is a truly European network of biennial competitions for young practitioners of architecture, urban design and landscape architecture. The author investigates how Europan, and the development of the theme of Living Cities, for its 16th session, address the challenges of care in the context of the territorial transformations due to climate change. The author argues that the Europan institution thanks to its complex and collective mechanisms of accompanying the formulation of questions and briefs, contributes in the debate regarding the need for architecture and urban design to adopt a territorial geographic repair approach.